Education Sector

Regional and Local Overview

25% of Galway City's population are students indicating a high level of education.

There are 10,741 individuals employed within the education sector of Galway.

Galway has a population of 62,389 people with a third level qualification which means that a quarter of Galway's population has a third level education qualification.

In Galway, 57% of third level students were in University, which is 4.6% higher than the national average.

NUIG had 16,542 students including 2,060 international students from 92 countries, with 2,002 staff of which 86% are full-time Academic Staff with PhD qualification.

NUIG was the only Irish university to have increased its position in the QS World University Rankings 2014/2015, rising four places to 280th.

Some 87% of staff employed in GMIT are full-time Academic Staff with Masters or higher, while some 20% are with PhD qualifications.

Coláiste na Coiribe is currently under construction with a total investment of €16 million.

The largest vocational school in Galway City is Galway Technical Institute (GTI) which has 1,175 pupils.

Yeats College was recently ranked as Ireland's highest achieving school, sending 100% of pupils to third level courses.

NUIG has in excess of 2000 international students, accounting for 15% of the student population which is the highest number of international students out of all Irish Universities.

In Galway County the number of secondary school pupils has decreased by 162 during the period 2007 to 2014.

Galway City had an early school leaver percentage of 3.6% compared to 2.2% in Galway County.

Galway City has 287 primary school teachers with an average class size of 24.1 pupils and Galway County has 902 teachers teaching an average class size of 23 pupils.

Since the establishment of DEIS literacy and numeracy rates in primary schools have been improving steadily and secondary attainment levels are improving as well as increasing attendance, participation and retention levels.

There are four multi-denominational schools in Galway.

Some 22% of primary school students in Galway attend a Gaelscoileanna.

There are 9 special schools in Galway, with Rosedale School being the largest, catering for 67 pupils.